The Wedding Present
by jennetsnow
Summary: Will finds love with a mysterious young woman who is not what she seems. (No, really. Stop smirking, it's unattractive.)


Author's Note: Pirates of the Caribbean obviously does not belong to me. Neither do any of the characters in this story, as you shall see. I sincerely hope you will take the time to review this: only CONSTRUCTIVE criticism, not pointless "Wow that's so great" fluffbunny crap, is welcome. Some HTML errors have been fixed, although they were actually fixed seconds after the page went up; apparently this site takes a while for uploaded changes to kick in. A clarification in the text has also been added.  
  
Elizabeth Swann stepped out of her carriage, regal and impeccably dressed, despite her lack of proper corsetry. After an incident that had after all proven fortunate, involving a marriage proposal, a vast body of water, and a pirate named Jack Sparrow, she had decided that her father the governor was better off organizing the island fortifications than his daughter's wardrobe. He was a governor, but the governor of a small island far from his native England, and so had relied fully upon his sister (whom he supposed to know better than he did) to choose some modish clothes for Elizabeth.  
  
Her aunt had excellent taste, but no practicality whatsoever, and had failed to reckon with the hot sun and close air of Port Royal—an understandable mistake for one who had, after all, never ventured from her London house except to go to her house in the country.  
  
After she had fainted due to overzealous corset-lacing, and fallen several hundred feet into the warm waters of the Caribbean, Elizabeth had insisted on choosing her own clothing. She had managed to find a dressmaker cunning enough to mimic the look of a corset without including its punishing whalebone inserts. Part of it was preparation for her wedding to one of Port Royal's most skilled weaponsmiths, William Turner, which was now only a month away. Her trousseau was as ready as it would ever be, and she thought she had embroidered enough handkerchiefs to last five lifetimes, and enough bed linen to last ten. She was heartily sick of sewing, and wasn't very good at it anyway, having long preferred more active pursuits.  
  
Because of her intense practicality and her father's absent-minded, easy-going temperament, she exercised a great deal more control over her upcoming nuptials than most women did. She shared some of the responsibility with her fiancée, Will, whose affection to her had, until just recently, been unvarying. One day he had been frantically asking her what she wanted as a wedding present, and the next, he had been totally unable to recall her name when one of his customers congratulated him on his upcoming marriage to the city's most eligible heiress.  
  
As she walked to the smithy people moved out of her way, not so much because she was the governor's daughter, but because she looked extremely determined and unusually cranky. She was known to have a passionate nature and a passionate temper to go along with it, and when Elizabeth stomped down the street instead of gliding along like a ship in full sail (the fashionably wide skirts only increased her resemblance to such a thing), people avoided her as if she were a dangerously overloaded firearm.  
  
She ignored them, and swept into her betrothed's forge, a frying pan in one hand and an elegant ivory fan in the other.  
  
Elizabeth saw exactly what she had expected: Her William, in a compromising position (but fortunately still clothed) with a young woman of indeterminate age.  
  
"Not again," she said, absolutely infuriated, and the couple before her broke apart from a passionate kiss.  
  
"Elizabeth!" yelped Will, and looked at her with enormous brown puppydog eyes.  
  
She shook her head silently, and stared at her age-old enemy, the girl at Will's side.  
  
The girl was wearing pants, this time. They did that sometimes, for no reason Elizabeth could tell; it made them look independent and strong-willed, she supposed. As usual, she had absurdly long hair that reached to her knees, and clearly the wench had absolutely no idea of what to do with it, as its inky depths just hung from her hair in rivulets of pure jet…  
  
As soon as this thought ripped through Elizabeth's mind, she looked at Will. "It's not your fault," said Elizabeth.  
  
"I just—" he answered, with obvious confusion, but his wife-to-be cut him off.  
  
"I know." He backed away from the young woman he had been kissing, and Elizabeth studied her. The young woman glared at Elizabeth with eyes of an inhuman green hue, which sparkled as if they were emeralds, remaining as coldly hostile as the gems they resembled.  
  
"Why don't you pick on someone your own size?" Elizabeth hissed, and snapped her fan shut.  
  
The beautiful young woman, who was actually much smaller than Elizabeth, smiled, and reality twisted around her. Suddenly Elizabeth felt an overpowering urge to go away, to leave Will, to move back to England, to die of the plague or because Will no longer loved her…  
  
She fought it, and took one agonizing step toward the long-haired, green-eyed wench, who drew her golden and obviously very special (possibly magical) rapier. The girl had lost her smile, and Elizabeth was now close enough to be sliced to ribbons with the rapier she brandished in her left hand. And indeed, the stunning, impossibly gorgeous young girl darted forward, slashing at Elizabeth's shoulders.  
  
Elizabeth didn't bother dodging, and the sword struck her on her upper left arm, hard enough to make her eyes water.  
  
Her opponent had obviously expected more, opening her lush red lips in astonishment and incredulity. "But… but… you should be dead! I'm the greatest swordsman in the world! I beat Will and Jack, singlehandedly!"  
  
Elizabeth took another step forward. "You ninny," she hissed between her teeth. "A rapier is a stabbing weapon. Next time do your research properly." Now she made her own darting motion forward, thinking of how happy her marriage would be once she had Will were finally wed, and brought the frying pan down on the strange woman's head, as hard as she possibly could.  
  
The girl went down without a sound, and Elizabeth lowered her kitchenware.  
  
Will shook his head and blinked his eyes, hard, slightly dazed. "What the…"  
  
"Hell," finished Elizabeth. "I've heard the word before, Will." Both of them looked down at the unconscious not-quite-adult on the floor.  
  
"Another canon-warping Mary Sue!" Will growled, having gotten some portion of his rightful mind back. "Why do they keep coming here? Isn't Jack enough for them?"  
  
"I think it's Anamaria. She's started carrying a pistol around."  
  
"Maybe you should too," Will said thoughtfully. "Or a sword, like—"  
  
"Like they do," Elizabeth finished, and shook her head. "That'd make me no better than the Mary Sues, Will. The next thing you know my eyes would be a stunning blue, deeper than the depths of the Caribbean Ocean or something." In disgust she shook her head again. "As if there IS a Caribbean Ocean. Besides, I like the frying pan. Though it's starting to develop a dent in it."  
  
"I like your eyes the way they are, Elizabeth…" Then he added worriedly, "I hope they stop coming after the wedding,"  
  
Elizabeth smiled, showing her white and very well-maintained teeth. "I don't."  
  
"Bloody Sues," said Will, looking down at the creature, who seemed to be wearing more eye-makeup than his friend Jack. He had already forgotten about his resolution not to swear in front of his soon-to-be-wife.  
  
"Give me another five minutes with the frying pan," Elizabeth replied.  
  
The girl on the ground moaned in pain.  
  
Will thought about this for a moment, and at last came to a decision about what wedding-present he ought to offer his much wealthier and well-born wife, who seemed to have everything already.  
  
"I'll make you a new frying pan," he promised. "With an extra heavy bottom."  
  
"That's very romantic of you, Will," she answered softly, and they embraced each other over the young woman's body.  
  
The girl moaned again.  
  
At one accord, Will and Elizabeth both kicked her, and she went silent. All was right with the world once more. 


End file.
